Stanisław Lem (Polish pronunciation: [staˈɲiswaf ˈlɛm] (listen); 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 45 million copies.[2][3] From the 1950s to 2000s he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological. He is best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.[4]

His works explore philosophical themes through speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books.

Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

During that period, I learned in a very personal, practical way that I was no “Aryan”. I knew that my ancestors were Jews, but I knew nothing of the Mosaic faith and, regrettably, nothing at all of Jewish culture. So it was, strictly speaking, only the Nazi legislation that brought home to me the realization that I had Jewish blood in my veins. "[6][11]

In 1945, Polish eastern Kresy was annexed into Soviet Ukraine and the family, like many other Poles, was resettled to Kraków where Lem, at his father's insistence, took up medical studies at the Jagiellonian University.[6] He hadn't taken his final examinations on purpose so as not to be obliged to become a military doctor.[10] Earlier he had started working as an assistant in a hospital[citation needed] and writing stories in his spare time.[6]

During the era of Stalinism, which in Poland begun in the late 40s, all published works had to be directly approved by the communist regime. Thus Astronauci was not, in fact, the first novel Lem finished, just the first that made it past the censors.[6] Going by the date of finished manuscript, Lem's first book would be a partly autobiographical novella Hospital of the Transfiguration (Szpital Przemienienia), finished in 1948.[6] It would be published seven years later, in 1955, as a trilogy under a title Czas nieutracony (Time Not Lost).[6] The experience of trying to push Czas.. through the censors were one of the major reasons Lem decided to focus on the less censored genre of science fiction.[12] Nonetheless, most of Lem's works published in the 1950s also contain, forced upon him by the censors and editors, various references to socialist realism as well as the "glorious future of communism".[12][13] Lem later criticized several of his early pieces as compromised by the ideological pressure.[6]

In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogues (Dialogi (pl)), as well as a science-fiction anthology The Star Diaries (Dzienniki gwiazdowe),[6] collecting short stories about one of his most popular character, Ijon Tichy.[14] 1959 saw the publication of three books: Eden, Śledztwo and the short story anthology, Inwazja z Aldebarana.[6] 1961 saw two more books, the first seen as among his top works: Pamiętnik znaleziony w wannie, Solaris as well as Powrót z gwiazd.[6] This was followed by a collections of his essays and non-fiction prose, Wejście na orbitę (1962), and a short story anthology Noc księżycowa (1963).[6] In 1964 Lem published a large work on the border of philosophy and sociology of science and futurology, Summa Technologiae, as well as a novel The Invincible (Niezwyciężony).[6][13]

1965 saw the publication of The Cyberiad (Cyberiada). That year also saw the publication of a short story anthology, The Hunt (Polowanie (pl)).[6] 1966 is the year of "Wysoki Zamek", and 1968, "Głos Pana" and "Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie".[6][13] "Wysoki Zamek" was another of Lem's autobiographical works, and touched upon a theme that usually was not favored by the censors - Lem's youth in the pre-war, then-Polish Lviv.[6] 1967 and 1970 saw two more non-fiction treaties, "Filozofia przypadku" and "Fantastyka i futurologia".[6] Ijon Tichy returns in 1971 The Futurological CongressKongres futurologiczny, the year of a genre-mixing experient, "Doskonała próżnia" (a collection of reviews of non-existing books).[6] 1973 sees a similar work, "Wielkość urojona".[6] In 1976 Lem publishes two novels: "Maska" and "Katar".[6] In 1980 he published another set of reviews of non-existing works, "Prowokacja".[6] Next year sees the another Tichy's novel, "Wizja lokalna".[6] Later this decade he publishes "Pokój na Ziemi" (1984) and "Fiasko" (1986); Lem's final science-fiction novel.[6]

From the late 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays, published in a number of Polish magazines (Tygodnik Powszechny, Odra, Przegląd and others).[6][12] They were later collected in a number of anthologies.[6]

In the early 1990s Lem met with a literary scholar and critic Peter Swirski for a series of extensive interviews, published together with other critical materials and translations as A Stanislaw Lem Reader (1997). In the book Lem speaks about a range of issues rarely touched on before in any interview. Moreover, the book includes Swirski's translation of Lem's retrospective essay "Thirty Years Later", devoted to Lem's legendary nonfictional treatise Summa Technologiae. During later interviews in 2005, Lem expressed his disappointment with the genre of science fiction and his general pessimism regarding technical progress. He viewed the human body as unsuitable for space travel, held that information technology drowns people in a glut of low-quality information, and considered truly intelligent robots as both undesirable and impossible to construct.[15] Since then Peter Swirski published a series of in-depth studies of Lem as a writer, philosopher, and futurologist. Notable among them are the recent From Literature to Biterature: Lem, Turing, Darwin (2013), Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (2014), Lemography (2014), and Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future (2015).

Lem was awarded an honorary membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in 1973. SFWA Honorary membership is given to people who do not meet the publishing criteria for joining the regular membership but who would be welcomed as members had their work appeared in the qualifying English language publications. Lem, however, never had a high opinion of American science fiction, describing it as ill thought-out, poorly written, and interested more in making money than in ideas or new literary forms.[18] After his eventual American publication, when he became eligible for regular membership, his honorary membership was rescinded, an action that some of the SFWA members apparently intended as a rebuke,[19] and it seems that Lem interpreted it as such. Lem was invited to stay on with the organization with a regular membership, but declined.[20] After many members (including Ursula K. Le Guin) protested Lem's treatment by the SFWA, a member offered to pay his dues. Lem never accepted the offer.[18][20]

Lem singled out only one[citation needed] American SF writer for praise, Philip K. Dick—see the 1986 English-language anthology of his critical essays, Microworlds. Dick thought that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion, and wrote a letter to the FBI to that effect. Stanislaw Lem was also responsible for Polish translation of Dick's work, and when Dick felt monetarily short-changed by the publisher, he held Lem personally responsible (see Microworlds).[21]

Lem is the most internationally famous Polish writer.[12] He has become one of the most highly acclaimed science-fiction writers, hailed by critics as equal to such classic authors as H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon.[22] In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.[4]

In Poland, in the 60s and 70s, Lem remained under the radar of mainstream critics, who dismissed him as a "mass market", low-brow, youth-oriented writer, and, in this way, such a dismissal might have given him a form of invisibility from censorship.[6]

The total volume of his published works is over 28 million volumes.[12] His works were widely translated abroad, appearing in over 40 languages, though the bulk of them were in the Eastern Bloc countries (Poland, Germany and Soviet Union).[6]Franz Rottensteiner, Lem's former agent abroad, had this to say about Lem's reception on international markets:

With [number of translations and copies sold], Lem is the most successful author in modern Polish fiction; nevertheless his commercial success in the world is limited, and the bulk of his large editions was due to the special publishing conditions in the Communist countries: Poland, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic). Only in West Germany was Lem really a critical and a commercial success [... and everywhere... ] in recent years interest in him has waned.

But he is the only writer of European [science fiction, most of whose] books have been translated into English, and [...] kept in print in the USA. Lem's critical success in English is due mostly to the excellent translations of Michael Kandel.[23]

Lem's works have been used in education, for example as teaching texts for philosophy students.[26]

Lem's works have influenced not only the realm of literature, but that of science as well. For example, Return from the Stars includes the "opton", which is often cited as the first published appearance of the idea of electronic paper.

In 1981 the philosophers Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett included three extracts from Lem's fiction in their annotated anthology The Mind's I, accompanied with Hofstadter's comment, which said in part that Lem's "literary and intuitive approach... does a better job of convincing readers of his views than any hard-nosed scientific article... might do".[22]

Other influences exerted by Lem's works include Will Wright's popular city planning game SimCity which was partly inspired by Lem's short story The Seventh Sally.[27]

Two overlapping arcs of short stories, Fables for Robots (Bajki Robotów), translated in the collection Mortal Engines), The Cyberiad (Cyberiada) provide a commentary on humanity in the form of a series of grotesque, humorous, fairy tale-like short stories from a mechanical universe inhabited by robots (who had occasional contacts with biological "slimies" and human "palefaces").[6][30]

"Śledztwo" and "Katar" are crime novels (the latter, without a murderer); "Pamiętnik..." in turn is a psychological drama inspired by Kafka.[6] "Doskonała próżnia" and "Wielkość urojona" are, in turn, collections of reviews of non-existent books, and introductions to them.[6] Similarly, "Prowokacja" purports to review a Holocaust-themed work.[6]

His criticism of most science fiction surfaced in literary and philosophical essays Science Fiction and Futurology and interviews.[31] In the 1990s Lem forswore science fiction and returned to futurological prognostications, most notably those expressed in Blink of an Eye (Okamgnienie (pl)). He became increasingly critical of modern technology in his later life, criticizing inventions such as the Internet.[32]

Dialogi and Summa Technologiae (1964) are his two most famous philosophical texts. The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances.[6] In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology.